Differing Descisions
by LordGodsServant
Summary: Astrid doesn't stop Hiccup from leaving but just watches.  Merely my rendition of the often used plot change.  Rated T because I am paranoid.


Astrid watched Hiccup carry that ridiculous . . . whatever it was into the ravine. She'd followed him here in fury after he'd been announced the best Viking in the class. Now she watched from the top of the ravine. He set the thing down and started talking to no one in particular.

"Okay bud, it's time we left to some place were I won't have to kill dragons."

"_Huh, so he's chickening out. But who is he talking to?"_

"I should have known better than to have used all of those alternate methods in class."

"_So he did cheat, but who is he talking t-, SWEET DRAGON'S TEETH!"_

A black medium sized dragon had bounded out of hiding and had pinned Hiccup to the ground. With of thrill of horror and fascination Astrid realized that this must be the Night Fury that everyone feared. She got ready to jump down into the ravine, if the Viking manual was right dragons loved to scare their prey spitless before killing them so she had some time. But she froze when she saw that, instead of roaring in Hiccup's face, the dragon began licking him. Even more surprising was that Hiccup seemed to be enjoying it.  
"Toothless . . . please . . . stop . . . licking . . . me!"

Finally to Astrid's great surprise the dragon Toothless, what a weird and somewhat stupid name, got off Hiccup. Hiccup put his hands on top of the dragons neck and started scratching, the dragon seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. Astrid had never seen a stranger sight, a human giving a dragon a neckscratch. Finally Hiccup stopped and Astrid watched in amazement as he fastened what she realized was a saddle onto the Night Fury, that the dragon consented was a miracle in itself. After he was done Hiccup flopped down against the side of the Night Fury, which sat, and appeared to be stealing himself for something momentous.

"I really should apologize to Astrid for outclassing her based on tricks."

"_Yes you really should."_

"But all she'd do is kick me in the groin and drag me to Gobber."

"_No I woul-, well maybe a little."_

"Good thing I left a note then."

"_A what!"_

"Okay bud, it's time to go."

Hiccup mounted the dragon and before Astrid could do anything he took off. The last thing she heard before he left was "let's stick to somewhere on the island, I still want to know how the village is doing."

Then he was gone, the Night Fury flew away. Leaving Astrid, the best Viking of her generation, completely confused.

* * *

Toothless and Hiccup flew around the other side of the island looking for a nice cave to spend the night in. The island was one of the biggest around so they had a lot of places to choose from. Finally, as it started to rain they chose a cave. They landed in the first cavern that had tunnels branching off deeper into the mountain. Hiccup got a good deal of firewood and Toothless breathed fire on it. Then they both lay down and were asleep within minutes.

* * *

Back at the village life continued, both Astrid and Stoick had received notes apologizing for the deception in training, though they'd not mentioned anything about the dragon. Gobber had graduated the class without the dragon killing ritual and Astrid knew, even though he didn't say it, that Gobber was proud of how Hiccup had found his own way to succeed in the class. Stoick seemed more affected than anyone else.

Despite their strained and fractured relationship Astrid believed that Stoick had genuinely loved his son and bow blamed himself for Hiccups departure. He was now grumpier and less often would he appear in the great hall for social gatherings. He spent hours locked away in his study; Astrid knew he was trying to distract himself by work. She even suspected that he, like her was sneaking into Hiccups study room in the forge and having a look at the enormous amount of notes and plans Hiccup had left behind.

After a few weeks Astrid came to a startling discovery, she missed Hiccup. Sure the village at large wasn't sorry about working without one of his disasters every half-hour but Astrid found herself missing them. Now all she had were the other boy idiots her age. She never would have told him but Astrid considered Hiccup to be the brightest boy his age. Tuffnut was just concerned with being the dominant twin and becoming the better Viking, Fishlegs was alright but sort of annoying with all of his RPG talk, and Snotlout, the guy was a prideful, unashamedly flirting, bullying idiot. It was easy for them and even Astrid to be and act like Vikings, they were good at it. But Astrid admired Hiccup slightly because even though he had nothing going for him, was consistently mocked and berated, he still kept trying hard over the years to be the great Viking his dad had always wanted. He'd even downed a Night Fury, even though she hadn't told anyone about that.

She went on with her life as normally as she could until a certain day in the spring. It was extremely wet and damp as it had rained the previous night. Astrid trained herself in all types of weather so she trudged up onto the mountain and began practicing. After about an hour she stopped to take a rest and that was when she saw it, a bootprint in the mud and right next to that was a dragon's footprint.

"_Hiccup must live somewhere around here."_

She noted where the prints were and planned to come back and look for Hiccup. She wanted to talk to him about his dragon.

* * *

For a year Astrid searched for Hiccup on the island. A couple times she knew she had been close but the opportunity had slipped away. She had even seen his dragon a few times but it had always been far away. In the meantime Astrid and Fishlegs had taken up work at the smithy with Gobber. Fishlegs had done so because he'd wanted to be more like his hero Hiccup, Astrid because she wanted to be self-reliant for weapons and repairs.

She began to lose hope of ever finding Hiccup in the winter. But that Spring during a dragon raid something happened that galvanized her to look even harder than before. It was a very warm night and it was raining dragons. Astrid led all of the teens her age around, protecting what they could. Some of the villagers had been bragging about how no Night Fury had been seen in around a year. Some said the same thing about Hiccup but that's beside the point.

As she rounded a bend Astrid saw Stoick get pinned by a Monstrous Nightmare. She raised her axe and was about to charge when she heard a terrified voice scream "NIGHT FURY, GET DOWN!" But as her squad hit the dirt she just looked up and saw what seemed to be a lightning fast black shadow swooping overhead. A blast of bluish-yellow fire rather like a missile hit the dragon on top of Stoick and it took off squawking in pain. As the shadow passed overhead Astrid just caught some brown hair reflected in the light of the torches. She then ran, leaving her disoriented squad behind and got to the top of an unused Catapult tower.

She peered around until she finally found the shadow again, swooping around the village. The dragon was shooting the other dragons at strategic points, places like the sheep pasture, the harbor, and practically anywhere there was a big group of them. Astrid also saw bolts (arrows from crossbows) hitting various dragons all over town, she would bet her axe that was Hiccup.

The raid was over in record time with minimal casualties. While everyone was congratulating Stoick on his great leadership skills that had won the day Astrid knew better. It had been the Night Fury that had won the battle so quickly. She knew that Stoick knew it too and also was certain that Stoick and even possibly Gobber would be interested in all the extra master work bolts buried in dragon corpses. Astrid redoubled her efforts to find Hiccup.

* * *

Gobber one night was walking home after a raucous party in the great hall, he'd find his stone tooth in the morning. As he walked down an unlit street he thought he saw something moving. At first he attributed it to his imagination and some mead but a moment later he stiffened up as he saw, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a black human shaped figure creeping across the street ahead of him. Gobber moved forward but the figure vanished.

Gobber was confused and wondered what it was. But was too tired to think anymore about it. He had to look into all the master-work bolts in the dragons tomorrow.

He went to sleep, not realizing that this was just the beginning of the strange happenings.

* * *

_Hope you like it. Unfortunately I probably won't update this regularly because I would like to focus more on my other fics._

_I do realize that there are other fics that have the same setting of "Astrid doesn't stop Hiccup leaving" and I apologize if this offends anyone. _


End file.
